[Tutor] Move all files to top-level directory

[Dotan Cohen]

On 12 April 2010 20:12, Sander Sweers <sander.sweers at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12 April 2010 18:28, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> However, it fails like this:
>> $ ./moveUp.py
>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>  File "./moveUp.py", line 8, in <module>
>>    os.rename(f, currentDir)
>> TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, tuple found
>
> os.rename needs the oldname and the new name of the file. os.walk
> returns a tuple with 3 values and it errors out.
>

I see, thanks. So I was sending it four values apparently. I did not
understand the error message.

> Also os.getcwd returns the working dir so if you run it in the wrong
> folder you will end up with a mess. In idle on my windows machine at
> work this is what is gives me.
>
>>>> os.getcwd()
> 'C:\\Python26'
>
> So it is better to give the program the path you want it to look in
> rather then relying on os.getcwd().
>

I intend to use this in a Dolphin (KDE file manager) service menu
only. But I will try to be careful about that in the future. Running
the script in $HOME might be interesting!

Actually, I will add a check that cwd != $HOME || $HOME/.bin as those
are the only likely places it might run by accident. Or maybe I'll
wrap it in Qt and add a confirm button.


> os.walk returns you a tuple with the following values:
> (the root folder, the folders in the root, the files in the root folder).
>
> You can use tuple unpacking to split each one in separate values for
> your loop. Like:
>
> for root, folder, files in os.walk('your path):
>   #do stuff
>

I did see that while googling, but did not understand it. Nice!


> It might be wise to only have this module print what it would do
> instead of doing the actual move/rename so you can work out the bugs
> first before it destroys your data.
>

I am testing on fake data, naturally.

Thanks!


-- 
Dotan Cohen

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